A confession of adultary

reflection of a 15 yr old boy having made his confession against the 6 th commandment
his sudden realization that life might be final.
the horror of seeing the sudden death of a docker in 1960
the empathy he has for the soul of the departed .
his growing cynicism about his own unforgiveness in the confessional

I had just made my confession. It was the first time had to tell
the priest about a real mortal sin. You know the one I mean; the
sixth cardinal sin . Adultery. The worst one. .

I cant talk about that just now ; but it was tough .I was fifteen
and he didn't give me absolution ; he wanted me to bring the girl
to the confessional next week when there was no one there . So
from that point I was sort of dammed any way .

The older guys had told me the priest was deaf anyway and the
best time to go was while the angelus bells were ringing , and
he'd just give me a few rosaries to do and pledge never to do it
again ; but of course . No . He wanted to hear everything -
before it happened - how it happened and what she did to mer and
I did to her ; God that was mortifying I can tell you .He didn't
give me any penance at all , and I knew the other sinners who had
their forgiveness were watching me as I came out of the
confessional because I took so long in there.

I came out of the church into the sunlight. It was like one of
those ordinary days you see somewhere in an old photo ; it could
be march or September a vague sort of a day .But the light was
quite fierce. and dazzling . I went over by the quay wall , where
the old men wee always gathered ,looking out at the sea , under
sailors caps; squinting under eyes which had wept before the wind
, and it struck me that they were looking at me now in that same
suspicious way they did at the sea , after a storm , as if they
were betrayed. ; I passed the houses with open doors and I got
the same feeling that the windows were dark like the eyes of a
dead fish - staring, cold and accusing One wall of the houses had
been burned, and the yellow faded rooms and the wall paper were
there like open lives or their characters; like a family secret
and yet I looked .

The fumes from the fertiliser factory could catch your breath
from here - a yellow trail spewing out to the sky from the
blackened wooden stores; they said it was cleansing, and that if
you live in its path you would never get bronchitis - others said
it was a poisonous gas, like Belsen ,and the bishop had no right
to erect the boys school so near the factory , and the medical
officer for health had condemned the site

Then the had bishop countermanded the medical officer and build
his school.

The medical officer held the grouch all his life and never went
to mass after .I think he must have been a wise man somehow, and
the bishop not so wise

.

I went to the end on the pier where a boy was fishing from the
quay, where beneath him the raw sewer spewed out into the tide. I
had fished just there too when I was his age , and he was
throwing his float just where I would have - how did we find the
dirtiest places to fish.

Out in the river there was a cormorant dipping, diving .

She went down this time longer than before and came up with an
eel wriggling and curling. Then two quick chops and a gulp and
the eel was gone . You could see the bulge in her throat.

The angelus bell rang , and I thought as I often did befor ;
while the first chime will some times give you a start the
following strokes always sounded much less loud ; This was a
sound of low accusations ; I mean for a low sin accusing somehow
. And I never forget the sound of that bell rinning .

It was tooling in its low solemn sound like the way when the
hearse approaches the church .And I thought that the dead who
knew everything about my soul were too accusing in a solemn way l
; accusing and unforgiving solemn and without any of the joy of
the bells at Christmas when we hurried up the stairs as the bell
tolled above us in the belfry going to the cloister on xmas
morning ; that was joyous in anticipation of something beautiful
like girls throwing petals on the road in front of the bishop on
Corpus Christie Sunday .. But there were no flowers in its ring
today ..it was wooden and deathly and funery if theres such a
word .

Something hit me about that bloody bell; I knew but others also
knew the vileness of my sins .. That's what it was saying to me ;
but I said the angelus any way . Just be sure .. But couldn't get
it out of my mind counting ;3 3 3 3 and a nine ….that's what you
did

I I knew something about ringing the angelus . I did it in my own
church - often ; Despite what they tell you ; you cant make them
louder no matter how hard you pull I had made bets on it ; and
lost . But even now there was a kind of grey mourning about the
bell - more like a droll old man with drooling lips pointing a
shaking finger.. That kind of a sound.

Down from d the river were the docks , and I remembered coming
across the gates one day , we tried to jump them when they were
being opened just 2 hrs before full tide ,and this day we left it
pretty close but the man in the gate house didn't even bother
with us. And I remember the high sound of our voices as we came
across the gates and suddenly this silence like I never heard
before .

The dockers were al looking down into the hull of the coal ship.

There was a man down in the hold , on blended knee , and there
were two feet sticking out from under the coat .And the coal
bucket on its side ;the crane idling and that was the only sound
. The motor of the crane, and the low hum of the steamer. and the
priest hurrying along and onto the ship and down a ladder to the
hold.

Kneeling there in the coal dust he took away the rag and anointed
the dead docker.; and when he came up , he too was covered in
coal dust like the other dockers.why that's what I remember I
don't know how I thought in the next few minutes , but I do
remember thinking later as a a dutiful priest -

And the last sacrament he delivered to the dead man the in the
hold in the dust , and the upturned bucket and the dead m an
under it and the sick feeling I got then and still get.

It is always there ; dreams nightmares.

I it never goes away ; was he in the state of grace as they
demanded or did it just happen; to be under it and did he have
time to have a last statement to god or did he just die ; there
and was now gone or somewhere else and was he smiling now ; at us
and our stupid lives still to complete or did it just go all
black like the coal dust that clawed at everything ; and did even
the priest know ..Or would it judt be a photo on a card thanking
everyone..Or was it like all that which went before;

The tide would come in again and the gates would just open and
close again and other kids would be fishing just there under the
ship for those listless pollack .

Or was his soul going to travel the seas again forever in the
hulk of the coal ship.

On my way home , you wont believe this but I had forgotten almost
completely about my own sins ; I kept thinking about the poor man
dead under the bucket and the priest full of coal dust and where
his soul was .